Cecilia Vicuña's Spatial Poems to Female Resilience

Cecilia Vicuña’s exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, ‘La India Contaminada’ (The Contaminated Indigenous Woman), closed July 6th, but I wanted to post it here anywhere if only because the work is so deeply gorgeous, visceral, celebratory. Ms. Vicuña included her hallmark quipus hung in a thicket from the ceiling of the front gallery. "In Vicuña’s native Chile, as well as Peru and Colombia, quipus – usually masses of knotted or braided rope – are used by indigenous Quechua people in the absence of a written alphabet," explains Evan Moffitt in his review of the show.

In Vicuña’s hands, we are reminded of quipus role as a mode of communication -- "In the ancient Inca Empire, quipus were used to take administrative records, collect census data and calendrical information, conduct trade and warfare. They could also be narrative, in ways that still haven’t fully been decoded."

The complete review and more images can be found on the Frieze site, here.